Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harai

Members were quite divided on our non-fiction title this month. Some of us devoured it and will probably read the second and third books in the series, while for others, the book was back in the library within a week. Some of us needed more information, saying the author just skimmed the surface of millions of years of history and there were huge gaps, while for others of us the detail was overwhelming and it was hard to concentrate on the themes without book marks and some furious note-taking.

For those of us to whom the subject matter appealed, the feeling was that the author is something of a showman with an amazing mind for history and for pulling a lot of information together into a malleable form. We felt that while most history books are dry this one was quite readable and thought-provoking with many memorable illustrations and humour to give the text a lift.

The tone is mostly optimistic about the future - for example, thanks to the advances of medicine the author describes illness as just a “technical problem”, asking if one day some of us will be virtually immortal. He is also convincing about the fact that the solar, wind and tidal energy at our disposal is enormous and for now we only lack the knowledge to harness it and convert it to our needs.

However, he makes it plain that despite relatively fewer deaths from wars in the 21st Century and a tightening web of international connections across the globe, it is not clear whether we are on the gateway of heaven or hell and a string of coincidences might yet send us rolling in either direction. “Is this a fundamental shift in the currents of history or an ephemeral eddy of good fortune?” he asks.

He also argues that despite this century’s triumphs of medicine, the virtual disappearance of international wars and the near elimination of large-scale famines, we seem to be out of touch with our “inner hunter-gatherer” and not necessarily any happier than our earliest ancestors. He also asks whether we should only care about the happiness of humans and whether the rapid depletion of other animal species on the planet needs our urgent attention. The sections detailing the domestication of farm animals and industrialisation of farming are shocking.

The book was written in 2014 and some of us felt it was an interesting read at the time of the corona virus. Early on in the book the author describes Sapiens as the deadliest species in the annals of biology from the earliest times with mass extinctions rapidly following our arrival on any new continent. He also speculates that it is doubtful if Sapiens will be around 1000 years from now.

However, he is not talking here about the ecological turmoil we have created that might endanger our survival (nor, clearly, of the pandemic currently stalking the planet). No, he is talking about the pace of technological development which he ponders could lead eventually to the replacement of Sapiens altogether (either deliberately or accidentally) by different beings with different physiques and wholly different cognitive and emotional worlds.

Who is Yuval Noah Harai?

Dr Yuval Noah Harari, 44, is an Israeli historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and his lectures specialise in world history.

He has published numerous books and articles. The follow up book to Sapiens, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, was published in 2016 and examines the possibilities of the future of Homo Sapiens. His book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, was published in 2018. He also gives a free online course in English titled A Brief History of Humankind.

He has twice won the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in 2009 and 2012. In 2011 he won the Society for Military History’s Moncado Award for outstanding articles in military history. In 2012 he was elected to the Young Israeli Academy of Sciences.